dgroulx's blog

The Literary Review of Canada recently announced that beginning in the new year, their submission policy will be of themed issues. Some of these themes will be poems on the elements—e.g. fire, earth, water, air, wood, poems inspired by food , among others. One of the first theme will be, poems from the margins, e.g. pieces from/about our prisons, reserves, North, rural areas, etc. When I saw this I began to wonder why it is that Canadians equate reserves with prisons (and perhaps even Indians with prisoners).

The other night I attended a poetry reading here in the capital of the country. It was the second poetry reading I’ve sat through in over ten years and probably the third reading I’ve attended in nearly twenty. It seems to be a pattern for me now; attend a poetry reading at least once every ten years or so. I recall I was actually ask to leave a poetry reading once in Victoria for being too rowdy, imagine that, a poet being rowdy. I guess you could say I was bounced out. Every poet should try it, especially if you’re the featured reader. I was much younger then.

If anyone has been watching the book tour circuit that has been looking more and more like a circus, not that it always was. You will have noticed the inundation of CBC talk show hosts talking about their books to other CBC talk show hosts. Let go down the list; first there was Rick Mercer, host of CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes talking to George Stroumboulopoulos about his book A Nation Worth Ranting About on CBC’s Tonight with George Stroumboulopoulos. Then there was Jian Ghomeshi, host of CBC’s Q talking about his book 1982 with Shelagh Rogers host of the talk show, CBC’s The Next Chapter. Then there was Amada Lang, host of the The Lang & O'Leary Exchange, along with Kevin O’Leary; with her book, The Power of Why, on CBC’s talk show Peter Manbridge’s One on One.

The story that North America was some kind of Eden started with Columbus, that idea is where the dehumanization of Indians (North American Natives) and this is where a lot of Aboriginal literature begins, here we begin to find our humanness. This is where White/colonial Canada begins discourse with/about Native Americans.
Our discourse is built on myths and misunderstandings and there cannot be any real communication on this continent until this one issue is resolved. Perhaps my poetry is a post, no a colonial point of view, an aboriginal meaning, struggling in English, a foreign language, but it was either English or remain silent. I could not have chosen silence.

Sometimes I think writing poetry is like Jacob wrestling the angel, Poets wrestle the Muses till it taps out, surrendering it’s secret language. I used to think that poems had to be waited for, now I think that’s a lot of crap. Now I think it’s a lot of work and I believe the more you work at it the more it might improve, needless to say I have a lot of work ahead of me. I might be biased here, because I never expected to make it to the age I am now, but I think the most interesting writing comes from older poets. Youth has so little to say, and there are some things in my youth I never want to speak of, ok I am biased. Writing for me is an exploration of language and its meaning, sound, symbol, emotion, tone.

I grew up in a town named Elliot Lake. In the beginning it became renown as wilderness frontier, a place with many fresh waters lake teeming with fish and game abundant. A boom had started Elliot Lake, boom brought about by the Cold war. A small wild mining town built on the Canadian shield in Northern Ontario. From 1955 when the uranium was discovered to 1996 when the last mine closed it was known as the ‘Uranium capital of the world’. The cycle of boom and bust was well known to the people of Elliot Lake, and sometimes the town was brought down to its knees, like when the United States decided to stop stockpiling uranium for weapons. That’s when the Canadian government stepped in and started stockpiling Uranium to keep a few of the mines open.

Shane Rhodes (Poet) as I understand was not writing from the perspective of an aboriginal person, so it was not appropriation. Now if you look at some of the writings of W. P. Kinsella, particularly the Hobbema stories, Dance Me Outside and The Rez. Kinsella was critized by the aboriginal community for his use of stereotypes and accused of appropriation of Native Voice. This kind of thing has been going on in Canada for years. From Wacousta a novel by John Richardson published in 1832. It is a use of an Indian vehicle to tell a Whiteman’s story. Margaret Atwood appropriated aboriginal pictographs in her novel, Surfacing using them as a vehicle for her feminist ideas.

The recent assassination of Somali poet Warsame Shire Awale in Mogadishu, last Monday, although shocking, is a continuation of a long tradition of poets being murdered. Warsame Shire Awale, advocated non-violence and young people to resist Militant Islamic groups in the countryside. His death harkens back to a continuing recurrence in history that saw the murder of Guineas poet and politician Keita Fodeba, in 1969, and the list of poets who’ve died in Stalin’s gulag is too long to mention here, but I’ll give a try, Osip Mandelstam d. 1938 Peretz Markish d.1952 David Hofstein d.1952 Itzik Feffer d.1952 and Spain’s Garcia Lorca d. 1936 during the civil war there. English/Catholic poet Chidiock Tichborne d. 1586 (executed for conspiring to assassinate Queen Elizabeth).

I recall living in the Okanagan valley. I was attending Enowkin writing school back then with Aboriginal students from across the country. During the winters the clouds would settle into the valley and pretty much stay there until spring, some of the staff at Enowkin would take the students, mostly students from the prairies up to the mountains. It was the worst time of year for people from the prairies, the depression seemed to have a much greater effect on them than anyone else. The feeling of confinement within the valley and everyday being cloudy, had a real negative effect on them.